


the thin line

by funvee



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-15
Updated: 2013-08-15
Packaged: 2017-12-20 06:05:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/883813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/funvee/pseuds/funvee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of disappearances forces the Hale pack to finally get their shit together. Stiles and Derek figure each other out at the same time. </p><p>Scott lets out a sigh that blatantly says told-you-so without even using words. Stiles ignores him and waves both arms at him like he’s on a game show and showing off Scott as the prize. “I present to you…a werewolf. You are doing werewolf training, yes?” Stiles asks, and barrels onwards without waiting for an answer. “Unless you’re in there discussing strange shit in town that might be supernatural, like the Scooby gang or something?” He stops and as a thought occurs to him, smirks, “Of course, you’d all have to be Scooby, wouldn’t you?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

A small plastic boat is pushed into the pond by small chubby fingers. The boat rocks, rocks, rocks….and then rights itself as the owner, a small girl named Chelsea, lets out a relieved breath. She’s exactly six years old today. Her mother promised they’d go to the park to celebrate, after her father canceled her birthday party. Her father was always “canceling” things. He was never home, either, but that was fine with Chelsea. He was much too loud when he was at home. Always shouting at her or her mother. She didn’t like that.

The boat floats on through the water, wobbling as a breeze blows by. Chelsea squats by the shore of the pond, her small pink dress brushing against the mud as she does so. She’s watching the boat carefully, ready to cry if it gets too far from her. It stays close, though, just bobbing along with the light wind. She watches it with a smile, happy to see the boat on the pond, just like it should be. Her mother never lets her put water in the bathtub to play with it — that “wasted water” apparently.

“Chels!” Her mother is shouting for her, back on a bench by the playground. Chelsea looks around, brown curls bouncing as she does so. Her mother is standing now, hands around her mouth, looking a little panicked. Chelsea stands up and waves her short arms towards her mother.

“Momma! Momma, I’m over here!” Her little voice echoes over the short distance, and her mother whips around, looking relieved. Nodding, her mother sits back down and waves at her. Chelsea waves back, and turns back to the water to look at her boat.

Only her boat isn’t there.

The pond is empty. The water is still. Chelsea’s eyes go wide as she looks, searches against the shore for her little plastic boat. Where did it go? It was just there a second ago. It couldn’t just disappear. Things didn’t do that. They had to go somewhere. She moves carefully toward the edge of the pond, scooting closer and closer until her toes are right at the water line. There is no sign of the boat. She turns her head slightly, and something catches her eye.

There’s a glint in the plants…just there. Bending at the waist, Chels looks in the reeds to the side of her. The boat isn’t there, but there’s something else hidden in the plants…it’s a ring. A gold ring, like the one Daddy wears on his left hand. It’s big, much too big for her, but it’s still pretty. Maybe Daddy would like it. 

She reaches for it, leaning out over the water…exactly how her mother warned her not to. It’s just barely out of her grasp, so she scoots the tiniest bit closer to the pond. It’s lapping at her shoes now, wetting the toes of her sneakers. It’s just her shoes though, so Momma won’t be too mad at her for getting so close to the water. She’s not getting her dress yet, so she’ll be okay. She leans some more and suddenly she’s touching the shiny metal. It’s cold, very cold. Like it was in the freezer, or next to some ice.

Chelsea wraps her small fingers around the ring to pull it back but something else pulls first. She doesn’t have time to scream as it pulls again, this time much much harder. 

The water barely makes a splash as she enters. 

●●●

“Ma’am. Ma’am, please. We are trying to find your daughter. We need you to help us,” the Sheriff starts, making the universal signal for please calm down. He’s motioning with his hands, and taking a step forwards towards the woman. He should comfort her, maybe. She’s hysterical, which he understands completely - her child is missing and he knows how that exactly how that feels. Stiles got lost in Walmart once, and he was sure he was going to take down the whole entire store, brick by brick until he found him. The dumb kid turned up in the freezer section, holding a box of rainbow popsicles. John remembers he couldn’t decide if he wanted to beat him or hug him until he popped. 

“I need you to tell us where you saw her last,” John says, reminding himself to take deep breaths, and to remain calm. He hates cases like this, when children go missing. There’s an extra sense of urgency about them that puts the whole station on edge. At the moment, though, there’s only so much he can do. He waves around him at the park, where officers have now taken over. They’re milling about the playground, asking questions to the parents and children that have been corralled there. So far, no one has seen anything unusual, which is unusual itself.

“I don’t… I don’t know. She was by the pond, she was. I saw her. She had that stupid boat of hers, she was playing with it in the water,” the mother explains, between deep ragged breaths. She still has tears running down her face, and whatever makeup she had on is long gone. John pats at the pockets of his pants, looking for a tissue or something to give her. He has nothing, just a pen and his wallet, so he crosses his arms over his chest and puts on his listening face. 

The woman continues, breathing become more and more steady until she’s barely crying at all. She’s mostly sniffling now, wiping at her eyes and trying to get calm enough to speak again. “I was reading, on the bench. There.” She points to a wooden bench, the paint flaking off of it. There’s a bag on the ground next to it, pink and purple polka dots. Is it hers? Maybe it’s full of Chelsea’s toys. “I looked up and couldn’t find her. So I started shouting, and she yelled back…” She pauses to take a breath and closes her eyes like she’s concentrating. She starts up again, eyes still closed, “She was by the water, waving at me. So I went back to my book, but I turned on the bench so I could look up and see her,” She opens her eyes again, and meets the sheriff’s own. John tries to keep his face passive. “The next time I looked up…she wasn’t there. I shouted again, thinking maybe she went back to the playground. But there wasn’t any answer. So I got up and looked. Asked everyone. No one had seen her. She wasn’t anywhere.” 

“So you called the police,” John finishes, nodding. It all made sense, what this mother did. He could even understand the reading and only looking up every now and then. He didn’t blame her at all. How could he? “And you’re sure you looked everywhere in the park…?” He asks, squinting slightly. What did she say her name was? Did she say her name? He can’t remember. Shaking his head, he decides just to ask. Better to be sure, than to make a fool of himself. “I’m sorry, what’s your name again?” John asks, wincing. He knows full well that he should have remembered it. 

“Oh. I never said. I’m sorry,” The woman makes an apologetic face, shakes her head and then looks up to smile. It doesn’t quite reach her eyes. She looks tired, but she motions to her chest. “Jackie. And I did. Everywhere.”

“Okay, Jackie,” John starts, and then stops to take a deep breath. This was always the worst part of these cases. He had to ask for something with DNA and the missing person’s scent. Something the dogs could follow, if they had to. It always felt like he was asking for a lot from the parents. “We’re gonna do our best find Chelsea. We’re gonna need something of hers that would smell like her. A blanket she sleeps with? A shirt she’s worn?” The sheriff pauses again, and doesn’t miss it when Jackie’s eyes flick back towards the bag by the bench. Good. Maybe they won’t have to wait for her to go home and come back. “And then we’ll need something with DNA. A toothbrush? Hairbrush?” 

Jackie nods and points over her shoulder to the bag. She turns and hurries towards it. John follows. She digs in the bag, coming up with a well-loved teddy bear and a small hairbrush. “Will these work? She sleeps with Barnaby every night and I just used this on her earlier today.” She shakes the bear and motions with the brush as she talks and then holds them both out to him like offerings. John waves over another officer, who takes the items and puts them into separate plastic bags. 

“They’ll work just fine.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Scott says that Derek shouldn’t throw us around so much when we’re training…” Isaac says, sandwich already halfway to his mouth. He finishes the circuit by chomping down on the bread, and taking a bite bigger than his actual mouth. Stiles watches, momentarily fascinated. How can so much food go into someone so small? The werewolf finishes the sandwich in another four gigantic bites, swallowing them all down with little difficulty. Stiles looks down at his own food — cafeteria bought pizza and a little paper carton of milk. It’s suddenly a lot less appetizing than it was before, but that won’t stop him from eating it. 

“Well…he probably shouldn’t, but you’re werewolves, right? You’ll heal,” Stiles says, picking up the pizza in one hand and motioning to Isaac with the other. The werewolf shrugs and goes back in his paper bag for a handful of chips. 

“Yeah. But Scott says there’s a saying that… you catch more flies with honey than water,” Erica pipes in, showing up suddenly and throwing her bagged lunch at the table. Stiles absolutely does not jump. He does not. They move too quietly, the whole goddamned bunch of them. Flashing a predatory grin, Erica sits down next to Isaac. 

“It’s vinegar not water, and yeah, that’s the saying,” Stiles corrects. He screws up his face and goes in for a bite of pizza, taking the time to chew it properly before swallowing. He’s not an animal, like some of these people. He gets that they all went through a lot of shit last year. They had to deal with Jackson’s scaly ass, had hunters and new werewolves and school and it was _tough_. No one’s denying that. He got his ass slapped around by a geriatric old man. It’s kind of hard to forget. But what he doesn’t understand is everyone’s new found appreciation for Scott. And don’t get him wrong - Stiles is Scott’s number one fan. He has been for a while. Like, since childhood, before kindergarten, even. It’s just…tiring, hearing everyone talk about your best friend like he’s the second coming of the Messiah.

“Hey guys,” Scott says, appearing next to the table with a tray lunch, backpack slung around his shoulders. At least he makes some sort of noise before he poofs into existence, which Stiles is appreciates. Scott’s got that dopy look on his face, which means Allison must be around. Stiles looks past his best friend, towards the lunch line and isn’t surprised in the slightest to see said Allison paying for her lunch. He resists the urge to roll his eyes. While he’s sort of gotten used to Scott’s one-track mind when it comes to his girlfriend, he doesn’t get why Scott thinks she hung the moon.

He scoots over for Scott, and isn’t disappointed when he plops down beside him. Scott wastes no time digging into his own pizza, tearing into it with a sort of animalistic fervor. It’s like a lion taking down a gazelle, which means its a little disgusting, actually. Pizza sauce sort of flings everywhere, splattering against the table. Stiles holds up a napkin wordlessly, while holding his face away from the blast zone. Someone grabs the napkin from him, but he doesn’t see who. 

Once the pizza is obliterated, Isaac and Erica smile at Scott at the same time. They look like creepy twins as their smiles pull across their face in exactly the same way. They’re so…unsettling. Boyd arrives quietly, though and diverts their attention to him. Erica smiles again, but this time it’s a sweeter smile. Not remotely creepy. Boyd sits down next to her without so much as a word. He doesn’t even look at Scott. 

Boyd might be his favorite, he decides.

They all eat in relative quietness for a while, before Erica speaks up again. “Derek called a meeting at his new place later tonight. You should come.” She’s looking directly at Scott, who has pizza sauce dripping out of the corner of his mouth. He stares at her, cheeks chipmunked out with half-chewed food. Scott swallows and then shrugs half-heartedly. 

“I don’t know…I’m not really in the pack, you know? Derek probably doesn’t want me there,” Scott answers, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand. The pizza sauce smears with his effort, and he grabs at a napkin to rub it all off. Erica watches, amused.

Stiles raises his eyebrows at Scott and lets his mouth fall open. Scott isn’t stupid. So why is he acting like an idiot? Waving his arms at his best friend, he practically shouts, “Um. Are you kidding? Derek has practically begged you to join his pack since the day you were bit. He’s done everything short of serenading you to get you to join!” 

Scott scrunches his nose up. “I don’t want him to sing to me. Gross.” 

Stiles rolls his eyes. “That was not the point of that sentence.”

Erica and Isaac are watching the whole exchange like they’re observing a tennis match. Their heads turn as the conversation bounces back and forth. He sort of wants to bash their heads together.

Scott gives him an exasperated expression, which is rather amusing. Scott rarely looks exasperated. “So you’re saying I should go?” Scott asks, cocking his head to the side and making a face at Stiles. He looks confused. Like a little confused puppy.

“I thought you hated Derek,” Scott adds, still looking very unsure about the whole thing. 

“I do! I totally do. He’s grouchy and rude and self-important,” Stiles answers, annoyed just thinking about the older man, “But…he’s also the only born-werewolf we know. He probably knows stuff you guys will never figure out on your own.” He waves his hand at the four werewolves, who nod at him like little mindless trolls. He stares at them for a moment before shrugging. Stiles grabs at his pizza for another bite. Might as well eat, right? 

After chewing and swallowing, he adds, “So yeah. You should go. Learn stuff.”

Scott still looks hesitant about it all. Erica and Isaac are staring, waiting with way too much enthusiasm for Scott to make up his mind. Boyd just looks bored. He’s definitely Stiles’ favorite. After chewing his pizza, Stiles lets out a sigh. “Want me to come with you?” He offers, mostly hoping that Scott will wave him off, saying that’s not necessary or that he doesn’t want to go. 

But, of course, Scott perks up and answers, “Yeah!” 

Stiles lets out another sigh and bobs his head. He didn’t really want to spend his afternoon listening to Derek beat up his betas, but whatever. Scott needed him and he’d do just about anything for his best friend. “Fiiiine,” he says, drawing the word out before turning back to his lunch.

The Creepy Twins look at each other and grin like maniacs. Isaac announces, “It’s right after school. At his loft downtown.” He’s looks excited enough that Stiles wouldn’t be surprised if he started jumping up and down in his seat, Tom Cruise style. It turns his stomach.

This is all probably some twisted sort of jealousy or something. Why else would he get so nauseated at the Creep Twins’ love for Scott? He stares at his tray, but he’s not really looking at it. He tries to shake the green monster, tries to focus on something else. That should work, right? There’s that math test next period, that he hasn’t studied for. That’s gonna go real well. His mind flicks through different topics like he’s rushing through a book. Math test, Dad, Home, Scott, Derek. Ugh. _Derek_. Since when did he have a new place, though? Last he heard, the alpha werewolf was living under the ice rink. Cold, he guessed, but good enough for a werewolf. He opens his mouth to ask about it, but Scott turns to him first. 

“Can I get a ride?” He asks, brown eyes going full puppy dog. Stiles swats at him, fingers catching against Scott’s ear.

“Do you really have to ask?”

“Probably not, but Mom always says I should ask first. Just in case.” Scott looks so proud of himself that Stiles has to bat at him again. Scott pushes back at his shoulder and Stiles punches at his side. They play fight for a minute or two before Erica clears her throat loud enough to hear over the noise. She’s smirking at them from across the table, like a queen overlooking her court. They pull away from each other like scolded kids. Stiles shoots a glare at her but answers Scott, regardless.

“Yeah, buddy. Don’t worry about it. You got a ride.”

Scott beams at him.

●●●

After school, Scott meets him out by the jeep in the parking lot. He got to school a little late that day, so walk over is a longer than usual. He arrives at the driver’s side door huffing a little. Scott leans against the back tire. 

“You sure about this?” He asks, the confused puppy look back from earlier. Stiles nods, and digs out his keys from his pocket. He shoves the key into the lock, turns it and yanks the door open in one not-so-smooth move. He almost beans himself in the head as he pulls it outward. It’s a narrow miss. 

“Yeah, dude. Gotta get you all werewolf-ed up,” Stiles laughs, jumping up into the jeep. It’s another classic Stilinksi move, in that’s awkward as hell and leaves him flailing slightly to right his balance over the seats. He tosses his book bag in the back and leans across the middle of the car to unlock Scott’s door for him. 

Scott, the lucky bastard, has the werewolf mojo to keep him from doing a face plant on the console. All he does is hop up, and he lands in the passenger seat all gracefully. Stiles stares at him, eyes narrowed. Why couldn’t he have that ability? Well, he knew why. He wasn’t a werewolf, that much was obvious. He had been offered the bite, but no. Stiles wasn’t about to take anything from Peter Hale. Especially something as serious as that. But he took solace in the fact that Scott hadn’t been like this before the bite. He was just as flaily and uncoordinated as Stiles. 

“D’you know where we’re going?” Scott asks as he shoves his own backpack behind the seats. 

“Yeah. Isaac cornered me after Physics and basically force-fed me the directions.”

The werewolf had tugged him by the arm as soon as the bell rang and led him out to the hallway. Stiles had crowded himself against the lockers while Isaac leaned into his space, all the while murmuring directions to Derek’s loft. Pushing people into walls must be a pack thing. Or maybe it was genetic? No. That couldn’t be right. The pack didn’t share any genes. Other than Peter and Derek, anyway. They all seemed to like force him against walls, though, so maybe it was something that they were taught in werewolf basic training.

Stiles had taken down the directions in his phone. It was more practical than trying to remember them all off the top of his head. He tossed it at Scott. 

“Read me those, will you? Can’t do it while I’m driving.” 

In the end, it takes them about ten minutes to find the building where Derek supposedly lives. It looks abandoned, but maybe the alpha doesn’t feel at home unless his living quarters are drafty and supremely uncomfortable? Stiles wouldn’t put it past him to find the shittiest dingiest place to live.

Though to be fair, Stiles won’t believe this is an actual residential building with actual power and plumbing until he sees it with his own eyes. For all they know, Derek’s just squatting in another deserted building. 

Stiles parks and they make their way to the front door. Just as Stiles suspected, the inside doesn’t look any better than the outside. There’s lot of exposed brick, but he isn’t entirely sure it started out as the artsy kind. He thinks the plaster or whatever might have just…fallen off. There’s big chunks of stuff on the ground that might have originally been on the walls. There’s no real way to tell, though. It smells musty and old, and it tickles his nose as they walk toward the elevators. Isaac had said Derek lived at the top of the building, which mean they were taking the easy way up. No way he was walking up six flights of stairs.

The elevator is slow but eventually they make it to Derek’s floor. They walk out into a very small hallway, facing a big metal door that looks like it might have originally belonged to a bank vault. Stiles debates with himself internally - Do they knock on it? Is there a doorbell of some sort? - when the door swings open, seemingly of its own accord. 

Derek Hale is standing on the other side of it, looking murderous, as always. Stiles raises a hand and waves. He gets a stony ice-cold glare in response.

“Why are you here?” 

“Um. Wow. No hello or hi or anything? Nice to see you too, Derek. How was your summer? My summer was great, thanks for asking.” Stiles retorts, rearing back slightly. He doesn’t know what he expected, really. But a hello would have been nice. Not that Derek’s ever been nice to them voluntarily. 

Scott lets out a sigh that blatantly says told-you-so without even using words. Stiles ignores him and waves both arms at him like he’s on a game show and showing off Scott as the prize. “I present to you…a werewolf. You are doing werewolf training, yes?” Stiles asks, and barrels onwards without waiting for an answer. “Unless you’re in there discussing strange shit in town that might be supernatural, like the Scooby gang or something?” He stops and as a thought occurs to him, smirks, “Of course, you’d all have to be Scooby, wouldn’t you?”

Derek lets out the most exasperated sigh he’s ever heard in his life. But in the end, he does move out of the doorway so they can come in. Even if he doesn’t invite them to do so.


	3. Chapter 3

Derek’s new digs aren’t really that impressive, actually. Stiles walks into the large space — and boy is it large — and looks around. 

The space is large and airy in the way that some caves are large and airy — it smells musty, like the lobby had, and there’s little to no light in the entire place. It’s probably because all the windows are coated in years and years worth of disgusting grime and muck. The windows themselves are high up, way up past his head, and _way_ out of his reach, which probably explains the dirt. They look ancient and just plain disgusting — Stiles doesn’t want know what this place was before it was transitioned into a residential building. 

As he looks around, he notices that there are cardboard boxes shoved into corners that look like they haven’t been unpacked yet. They’re all taped up and tightly stacked on top of one another, in what must have been an attempt to save space. Had Derek had things put away into storage? He had lived in New York for a while, Stiles knew that much. He can’t recall where he heard that particular tidbit of information, but it seems like it’s probably accurate. Derek had only turned up back in Beacon Hills early last year, after all. He had to have been _somewhere_ before he starting brooding in the preserve.

Scott meanders up beside him, looking antsy about being in Derek’s place. He’s fidgeting beside Stiles, running his hands over his face, shoving them into his pockets, taking them out, crossing his arms over his chest, over and over. Scott does not want to be here, but it’ll be good for him. Derek can be a dick, but he does know more than anyone else in their town about being a werewolf. Stiles can only do so much internet research, and even then, it’s impossible to know what’s true and what’s completely made up. He’s stumbled upon enough kinky werewolf porn to last him a lifetime, thank you _very much._

They aren’t six feet into the loft when Isaac and Erica appear out of nowhere. It seems like they pop into existence right in front of them, sending Stiles jumping about a foot into the air, slapping a hand over his heart like a damsel in distress. “Jesus fuckin’ Christ! Don’t _do_ that,” He screeches, reaching out and slapping Isaac across the upper arm. The curly-haired werewolf blinks at him, and then has the sense to look at least a little sorry about it. 

Erica ignores Stiles in favor of reaching out and touching Scott on the arm. He turns to look at her, a question in his eyes and written across his face. 

“You came!” She says, grinning wildly. Isaac bobs his head beside her, looking just as excited that Scott showed up, even though he said he’d be there. Just how much faith do they have in him? 

“Leave him alone,” Derek says, slipping out from the shadows. Stiles thinks he must practice hiding in the dark parts of rooms. No one can be _that_ good at it naturally. 

He looks around in time to see the two betas move themselves away from Scott, looking guilty. Erica folds her arms over her chest, and Isaac shoves his hands deep into the front pockets on his jeans. Scott looks bewildered again. Stiles thinks it might be his new default expression, but Scott _does_ have a lot to be confused about these days. Stiles chances a look at Derek, who is straight up _glaring_ at Scott, like it’s somehow his fault that Isaac and Erica are basically magnetized to him. Though really, when does Derek ever _not_ look angry at something? Talk about default expressions.

After a minute or two, Derek looks away from Scott and moves further into the loft, leaving them all standing there awkwardly. Stiles flops his hands down to his sides, and then shrugs. They aren’t getting anything done just standing here. He follows Derek into what must be the “den” of the loft. There’s a ratty looking couch and an even shittier looking table in front of it. It’s who’s on the couch that makes Stiles’ stomach churn.

“Why are _you_ here, Stilinski?” Jackson Whittemore is lounging on the couch like he owns the place, which doesn’t surprise Stiles in the least. He’s all spread out, arms over the back of it, feet up on the cushions, muddy shoes and all. Jackson sneers at him and it sends Stiles’ blood boiling. How could one singular person be such a douchebag? Jackson was at least fifty times more douche-y than the average frat boy. Stiles had seen the math.

He takes a deep breath before raising his eyebrows at Jackson, and flicks a hand at Scott, who blinks, before he answers. “I’m here because of him, asshat. Why are you here?” He shoots back, crossing his arms over his chest. Seriously…who thought it was okay to invite this dickwad?

“Same reason your boyfriend’s here.” Jackson flashes bright blue werewolf eyes and then smirks, looking just as pleased with himself as he always does. It makes Stiles wants to punch him in the face. Maybe more than once.

“I bit him. He’s in my pack. _Therefore,_ he’s invited to training,” Derek says, coming back from wherever he had gone. He meets Stiles’ eyes briefly before he glances down at Jackson’s feet. Derek’s glaring at the shoes on his couch like he’s trying to set them on fire with his mind. He leans over and shoves once at Jackson’s feet. They fall off the couch with a thump, leaving a long brown streak of mud behind on the fabric. The younger werewolf loses his balance quickly and goes tumbling towards the floor, where he lands in an uncoordinated heap on the hard ground. 

Stiles can’t help but let out a loud snort of laughter. A second later and a pillow from the couch hits him square in the face. Stiles gets a grip on the rough material and throws it back. It bounces right off of Jackson’s stupid handsome face and lands in his lap. Jackson grabs at the pillow again, fingers turning white at the tips. He looks ready to smother Stiles with it. 

“If you throw that again, I will rip your arm off,” Derek says, like a parent who’s tired of listening to their children squabble. There’s no real threat in his voice, though, even if Stiles wouldn’t mind seeing Jackson attempt to fight Derek. It would be a very short fight. And very bloody….for Jackson. 

A small part of Stiles’ brain is gleeful to note that Derek doesn’t seem to like the douchebag any more than anyone else does. In fact, he looks almost annoyed that he’s even there. Why did he even bite him? Did Jackson blackmail him into it or something? Stiles wouldn’t put something like that past Jackson.

Stiles can’t understand why Derek would willingly bite the boy - Jackson’s presence alone can be grating on someone. Why make him a werewolf and thus even more powerful? Jackson didn’t need more power. He had his parents’ money, and the title of lacrosse captain. He had enough power. He didn’t need to be a werewolf on top of all that. 

Boyd shows up not too much longer after that. He arrives quietly, and immediately goes to stand by Erica.

“Okay. The gang’s all here. You guys can start ripping each other apart now,” Stiles announces, clapping his hands together once. The sound reverberates through the open space of the loft, petering out into nothing. He puts on his best go-get-‘em attitude but it falls a little short. He doesn’t want to watch his friend get beat up, even if it is in the guise of learning more about what he is. 

As an afterthought, Stiles adds, “Unless the Walking Dead is supposed to show up?” He really hopes not — he doesn’t like Derek’s uncle. Not since he offered Stiles the bite and resurrected himself by manipulating Lydia. That was crossing a line that Stiles was _not_ okay with.

“Peter’s not coming,” Derek answers, mouth twisting into something that might be a smile, if you turned your head slightly and squinted. 

Stiles lets out a surprised squeak of laughter. He claps his hands over his mouth to try and stifle the sound. _What an embarrassing noise._ He honestly hadn’t expected Derek to get the reference. Not that it took very much to get it - the name of the show alone is enough to understand whom he was referring to. But _still_. 

He’s happy Peter’s not coming. He didn’t want to deal with the undead. Not today. Not when he was already going to have to watch the werewolves rip each other to shreds all in the name of training. 

No one says anything about the squeak, which he’s infinitely grateful for. They all crowd around Derek when he motions for them to, leaving Stiles to sit on the couch by himself. There’s not much more he can do — it’s not like he can jump up and join in on the training. He wouldn’t last five minutes in there, not that any of them would let him in on the fight anyway. Scott would put his foot down the minute he tried to join. Stiles didn’t want to join in anyway. He likes having all his limbs attached to his body.

Derek’s murmuring to the group about what they’re going to be going over that day. Stiles hears something about knocking him over, and he twists in the couch to watch. This should be interesting, if not flat out bloody.

Right before his eyes, Derek lets the wolf bleed into his features — fangs drop and claws appear at the tips of his fingers as he flexes his hands. Eyes flash bright red and a low, _low_ growl rumbles out from his chest and into the air. The alpha wolf pulls himself into his fighting stance, body dropped low and ready to brace for any attack that might come. The same transformation ripples through the rest of the pack and Scott - the combined growls that echo through the loft send a shiver up Stiles’ spine. It settles somewhere in the back of his neck and rests there, twisting into a twinge of fear. He knows they won’t hurt him, knows it deep down in his gut, but his brain is convinced that the sound means danger. 

Stiles tries to ignore it as he pushes back against the couch cushions and waits for something to happen. 

Erica’s the first one to move. She leaps at Derek, claws first. She sinks them into his skin, and tears her hands downwards. With one sweep of his arm, he flings her from him, sending her flying into the wall. She hits it with a loud thump and slides down to the ground, where she lands like a puppet without strings. Stiles winces, stomach clenching. He doesn’t like watching people get hurt. The only evidence of her attack are the ten long, bloody marks on Derek’s shoulders. Derek shakes himself like a wet dog and anchors himself against the ground once more.

There’s a pause where Derek meets the eye of every werewolf before him, and then snarls, “Anyone else?”

Chaos breaks loose. Isaac goes next; he sweeps his claws at Derek’s feet and tries to knock him over by knocking him off balance. Derek kicks him away. Boyd goes for brute strength, throwing his entire body at his alpha. Derek rocks slightly at impact, but ultimately remains standing. Jackson lets out a huff, like he’s annoyed he has to even try. He ends up going for Derek’s throat. The alpha lets out a roar that shakes the room and he bodily throws the blue-eyed beta across the loft. Jackson hits some boxes, and sends them tumbling down on top of him. 

They’re a mess. A complete and utter mess. It’s clear to Stile that none of them have any idea what they’re doing. Nothing is fazing Derek. No one is getting remotely close to knocking him down.

Scott watches from the sidelines, circling Derek. He hasn’t made a move to attack him yet. He’s observing the situation carefully as possible, always moving. He must be looking for the best place to attack Derek. Either that, or he’s stalling. Stiles isn’t quite sure which.

Stiles waits for something to happen. 

“We aren’t going to bring him down unless we work together,” Scott finally says, voice wonky around his sharp teeth. To Stiles, talking with all those extra fangs seems uncomfortable, but none of the wolves ever seem too concerned with it. They always sound a little funny, though. He makes a note to ask Scott about it later. 

Scott keeps circling, but he’s looking over his shoulders for the other wolves. Erica has slowly pulled herself to her feet and moves to stand behind him. Boyd stalks over and finds a spot by Erica. She leans against him quietly, and slips her hand into his. Isaac wraps his arms around himself, like his ribs hurt, but he’s moved over to the group and tucks himself in between Boyd and Scott. Jackson slinks over, and stands next to the group, but not really close enough to really be a part of it. 

Derek is still standing in his spot, still firmly in defense mode. He’s glaring daggers at Scott. If looks could kill, Stiles thinks, he’d definitely be without a best friend right now. Scott doesn’t seem to notice, though. Either that or he just doesn’t care. 

“He’s bigger than all of us. Stronger,” Scott continues, pointing with his claws at the alpha. The others are watching carefully, gold and blue eyes flashing as they follow Scott’s finger. He carries on, still walking around Derek carefully. The alpha turns in his spot as he circles, making sure not to let Scott leave his line of sight. “If we want to bring him down…we’re going to have to do it as a team.”

Scott, while keeping an eye on the alpha, waves the others into a group. Stiles watches as they all scrunch together, and bow their heads into the circle. They talk quietly between themselves, soft enough that he can’t hear a word that’s passed between them. He glances back towards Derek, who hasn’t moved an inch from his spot. He’s tilting his head towards the group, but from the expression on his face, Stiles is willing to bet that he can’t hear anything either. 

The group breaks apart. 

Without warning, Erica goes for Derek’s upper body again, sinking her claws into his flesh. A surprised roar rips through him, shaking the windows in their frames. Isaac slips around behind Derek and swipes at his ankles. Boyd moves at the same time as the smaller wolf and slams into Derek, sending the alpha stumbling from his spot. Jackson kicks forcefully at the backs of his knees, forcing Derek down to the ground. Scott gets in one single push to the alpha’s shoulder, which knocks him off balance. 

Derek is on the ground for exactly one…two seconds before he pushes them all off him. They land in a small heap on top of one another. The betas stare up with proud faces from their little puppy pile, practically begging to be praised. Even Jackson looks like he’s waiting for Derek to say something nice. Scott, though, looks like he’s avoiding Derek’s eyes the best he can. He glances across the room at Stiles instead, flashing a self-conscious smile at his best friend. 

Stiles grins at him, throwing up a thumbs up back. Scott looks pleased.

“That was…good,” Derek offers finally, voice gruff. The wounds on his chest and shoulders are bleeding sluggishly, but they’re healing. He doesn’t sound like he was impressed, but Stiles isn’t sure he would know what Derek’s impressed voice would sound like if he heard it. He’s not sure Derek knows how to be impressed, actually. It sounds like the three-word compliment has been forcibly pulled from his mouth, catching on his teeth as the words escape. The betas look satisfied with the offered accolade though, so Stiles supposes it did the trick. 

They all clamber to their feet, helping one another off the ground with a yank or a tug. 

Training doesn’t last much longer after that. Stiles makes himself comfortable as they work, watching them battle over the couch cushions. Nothing too interesting happens again — they tackle Derek to the ground two or three more times, each time working together as a team, as a _pack_. Even Scott gets in a good swipe or two against Derek before the session is over. 

When he finally calls for an end, Derek is left wearing a bloody tattered shirt, newly-healed pink skin peeking out under all the holes. He rips it off over his head and tosses it towards what must be the trash can. It puddles on the ground, a grey bundle of cloth. 

Stiles wonders, as he watches Derek, just how many shirts does the man go through? Does he buy them cheap, in those 3 shirts for $5 package deals? Or maybe he goes to Goodwill and picks out the least offensive options? Stiles hopes he doesn’t spend all his money on shirts, even though all evidence seems to point that way. He’s not sure he’s ever seen Derek wear a shirt for more than a few hours before it’s clawed to shreds. 

As the session wears on, Derek begins to look more and more irate with the betas and Scott. His teeth grate, his growls become louder and louder until the window glass quakes again. He strikes out more violently, drawing blood on more than one strike. Betas are flung against walls, and bones are broken. Stiles wonders, for a moment, if it’s all because Scott seems to know more about leading a pack than he does, or if that’s just his tired face. 

He suspects it might be the former.


	4. Chapter 4

With a bop of his hip, Stiles shuts the oven door on the sweet potato fries. He punches in 25:00 on the timer and then steps back. His dad has worked long hours since approximately forever thus Stiles had long since gotten used to appropriating dinner for the two of them. Most of the time it was take out from somewhere moderately healthy, but every now and then Stiles got the urge to cook. Which meant he got the urge to shove fries in the oven and make hamburgers a la Stilinski. 

Hamburgers never took long to assemble and grill, so Stiles sets the patties on the counter while waiting for the fries to get at least half way done. Just as he opens the door to the fridge to see what else he could make to accompany said fries and burgers, the garage door grumbles to life and sends the picture frames rattling against the wall. The sheriff walks in not too long after that, tossing his jacket at the hooks on the wall, and kicking his shoes off at the door. 

“Hey kid,” He calls, peeking around the doorframe into the kitchen. Stiles grins up at him, smile wide across his face for a split second before he catches sight of what his father actually looks like. There’s that gaunt look people only get when they’ve been awake for too long clear cross the sheriff’s face, complete with a pale complexion and deep bags under his eyes. Something’s off at work.

“What’s wrong?” Stiles asks, waving his father towards the kitchen table. He waits until his dad sits down before he does, plopping into the rickety kitchen chair across from him. He figures his father is going to spout a lie, something like, ‘nothing was wrong, what could be wrong?’ but he ends up being surprised. 

“There’s a girl missing,” The sheriff answers flat out, pausing to take a deep, tired sounding breath. This whole thing means he might break out the whiskey tonight, and he doesn’t need that. Not over a brand new case. The sheriff sighs and then continues, “From the park. The mom says she just looked away for a second and then her daughter was gone.”

Stiles’ back is straight, ass teetering directly on the edge of his seat. It’s not every day in Beacon Hills when a child goes missing. They’re a small town — cases like these don’t happen very often, and when they do, the whole population goes on alert. He’s surprised he hasn’t heard about this already - things like this go around the town gossip rings like fire. 

“There’s no trace of her. There’s not any shoe prints. No one saw anything suspicious, there’s nothing,” John says, closing his eyes and running a hand across his features, stopping to rub at his eyes. Stiles reaches out and touches him on the arm, to ground him back to reality. His father is lost in the case still, ear deep in evidence, testimony and pure conjecture. His touch works — John opens his eyes again and looks at his son with a sad, affectionate smile playing about his mouth. It flickers away a moment later, replaced by a look of agonizing frustration. “The mom says she last saw her by the pond, playing with a toy boat. We looked. We found the boat, but no sign of the girl. Of Chelsea.” 

“Did…did she fall in or something?” Stiles asks immediately, like the whole department of police hasn’t already thought of it already. He’s running his hands over the surface of the kitchen table as he talks, brushing against the texture of the wood. It’s rough from years of use, but mostly from kid-him gouging out his name in the soft top with the ends of utensils. 

“No…” His dad answers, with a shake of his head. He looks like he’s about two seconds away from shutting down and just going to bed. Stiles isn’t for that — he wants to know more about this missing girl…Chelsea, apparently. The sheriff sighs, and then shakes his head again, more decisive. “I shouldn’t even be talking about this with you.” 

“Hey! How many cases have I helped you on?” Stiles offers, scowling across the table at his father. 

“More than you should have.” 

“Yeah, well. We usually figured them out, didn’t we? This is a little girl we’re talking about here. What if I help you find her?”

The sheriff shoots him a dirty look, eyebrows pushed down and angry, but he points a blunt, somewhat threatening finger at him. “Not a word goes outside this house.”

With a flick of his hand, Stiles salutes his agreement. 

The timer for the fries blares before his father can tell him anything more about the case. Stiles leaps to his feet, grabs a hot pad (Safety, folks) and pulls the cookie pan full of fries out of the oven. He shuts it with another hit of his hip, and lays the pan carefully on the stove top. He turns and catches sight of the hamburgers, two molded patties still raw and pink sitting on their platter. 

“Dammit, I forgot —“

“Language.”

“Sorry,” Stiles says quickly before the lecture can start, “but I forgot to get these started. Now the fries’ll be cold,” He waves at the hamburgers, frowning. He had been so distracted by his father coming home, by the new case, the missing girl, that he had completely forgotten that he had to actually grill the burgers.

“I’ll do it. Give ‘em here,” The sheriff motions for them, pulling himself out of the chair and to his feet. Stiles hesitates — his dad is tired, exhausted even. He shouldn’t have to cook after working all day, but the sheriff lets out an impatient huff and lunges forward to grab them before Stiles can hand them over.

It doesn’t take as long as expected for the burgers to cook, and the fries aren’t nearly as cold as Stiles thought they would be. They can’t really be classified as hot anymore, but they’re warm enough to still be palatable. The two of them eat in relative silence, a few questions about school and friends, the rule about no work conversations over dinner still heavily in place. 

It isn’t until after everything is washed, dried and put away that the sheriff sits back down with his briefcase, pulling a folder out of it and laying it on the tabletop. Stiles’ feet tangle together as he hurries to get over to the table, landing awkwardly on a chair, sending it screeching across the linoleum floor. He looks up at his father, who raises his eyebrows at him. 

“I tripped,” Stiles says, shrugging.

“I can see that,” The sheriff laughs, looking more alive than he has the whole night. He sides the folder across the table to Stiles, who lights up at the prospect of looking at it with actual permission. 

He flips through it, the hastily written reports of what the mother said, accounts taken from other people at the park, pictures of evidence, a picture of the little missing girl, all of it. Stiles looks up when he’s done to find his father has slumped in his chair, leaning his head onto the palm of his hand, halfway asleep. He clears his throat. 

“There’s not much here,” He admits, pushing the folder back towards his dad. From what it sounds like, every person near the playground had a child with them, and a good reason to be there. There were no creepy old men, no pedophiles hiding in the bushes. So far, it sounds more like the girl simply just ran away. 

The sheriff shakes his head and takes a deep breath in. “That’s the thing — we questioned every person in the park, even the kids. No one saw anything odd and the whole park was full of people. Chelsea was there…and then she wasn’t.”

Stiles frowns, worrying at his lip with his teeth. Something is tugging at his gut, telling him this is all a little too odd to be normal. Not that any missing children’s case should be considered normal but there’s nothing here to say that it isn’t. It’s just a feeling, though, one that turns his stomach over in on itself and lingers. 

“Could she have just wandered off?” Stiles asks, staring at the folder on the table. He knows the answer to his own question — no — but still asks it, anyway. 

“There’s no way. Her mom looked all over the park…if she had just walked away, she would have found her,” His dad confirms his answer, tapping a finger on the folder. “She’s only six years old…there’s no way she could leave the park that fast.”

_Six years old._ The words are a hit to the gut, winding him. When he was six years old, he was making mud pies in the backyard and baking cookies with his mom. This six year old girl is missing and no one knows where she is. The time line of these sorts of cases is never very long; if they want to find Chelsea alive….they have to move quick. But it’s hard, there isn’t enough stuff to go on. Hell, they don’t have _anything_ to go on. 

“We’re rallying a search party,” The sheriff says, raising his eyes from the folder to look at his son. “We’re starting with the officers and the dogs…then we’ll ask the town for help. Volunteers.” He stops, and then levels a look at Stiles, one that really means business. It’s the look he usually gets when he’s done something wrong. “You aren’t to come until we ask for volunteers, do you hear me?”

Stiles blinks at him, and then nods slowly. He _had_ been thinking about sneaking out to go help, but…whatever. He could still slip out the back window or just wait until his dad left to join up with the rest of the force. His plans must flash across his face, though, because the sheriff hammers it in, a stern look worn into his features. “I want you to do your homework and I want you to _stay at home._ ” He slams a finger against the table as he says the last three words. “Do you understand me?”

Eyes wide, Stiles nods, before adding a curt, “Yes, sir.” 

“Good.”

The sheriff leaves not too long after that, grabbing his jacket and shoving the folder back into his briefcase. Stiles waves at him once as he goes through the door out to the garage, and before the rumbling of the garage door starts, Stiles is up the stairs and in his room. 

His father does have a point about his homework — there’s a lot of it this evening and he has to get a good chunk of it done tonight. He hauls his backpack towards his desk and starts pulling the necessary items out of it. They all go into a huge disorderly pile on the floor, so he can go through it later and make sense of it. For now, though, Stiles grabs his chemistry book and the appropriate notebook. There’s a lab report due tomorrow and he hasn’t started it at all. He should…probably do that.

The light in his room goes from the orangey-pink of sunset to pitch black very quickly. He’s deep within the lab report, only sidetracked by the internet two or three times so far. Most of the damn thing is done — he’s just got the abstract left and that won’t take him very long at all. 

Of course, that’s when he gets distracted by the internet, and everything goes a little sideways. 

Somewhere between Imgur and one of the rare actual, truth-to-life forums about the supernatural he likes to frequent, Stiles’ head droops to the desk. He lays there drooling onto the notes for his lab report for about an hour, until his phone pings loudly with a new message. The sound sends him shooting off the desk, shouting nonsense, and grabbing for his phone. 

It’s a message from his dad, telling him the search has been called off for the night due to weather. He types back a quick response letting his dad know that he received it and then turns in his chair to peer out the window. Sure enough, it’s raining so hard the water is sloshing down his window, collecting in the quickly overfilling gutters below. Stiles watches for a while, entranced by the sound of the rain and how it looks running down the glass until a yawn shudders through him, leaving him shaking in his desk chair. 

He mumbles to himself as he reads over his lab report, quickly erasing the long repeating lines of ‘aaaaaaa’ his hand had pressed while he had fallen asleep. It’s not the best thing he’s written, but it’s good enough for now. Harris will probably fail it, but it’s — Stiles stops to glance at the time and then lets out a long stream of curses — 2 in the morning and he should probably get some actual sleep.

Stiles collects his things, stacks the haphazard pile a little better and prints out his lab report. He shoves it all into the inside flap of his chem book, and tosses the chem book on top of the pile. He’ll put everything in his backpack tomorrow morning, after he’s more awake and coherent enough to do so. 

Shucking his pants and shirt, Stiles falls into his bed face first, nose squished against the mattress. He’s asleep within minutes.


	5. Chapter 5

School the next day is uneventful at best and mind-numbingly boring at worst. 

The werewolf gang hangs to themselves for the most part of the day, leaving Stiles and Scott sitting by themselves at lunch. It’s nice — they get to talk to each other without comments from the yellow-eyed, sharp fanged peanut gallery. They don’t talk about much, though. It’s mostly about how training went, how Derek hits hard and how Erica likes to pull hair when she fights. Stiles nods and makes noncommittal sounds at the appropriate moments, hoping Scott won’t actually notice he’s not paying attention. Now that they had a chance to talk about something else other than werewolf business, it’s all Scott wants to talk about. Who would have thought he’d be wishing for Allison to walk by and distract his best friend? 

She doesn’t though, so Stiles is left half-listening to Scott and half-watching the movements of the cafeteria around them. No one’s doing anything interesting, though, so he ends up turning his attention to his food. The chicken nuggets are soggy today, sticking to the plastic tray and leaving half their breading behind when he picks one up. They’re kinda gross, actually, but it was either them or fish sticks and you never got fish sticks when you could get nuggets.

Lunch goes by quickly enough, leaving Stiles and Scott going in different directions. Stiles has Chem, next and Scott has to run clear across campus to get to his history class in time before the bell. 

Chemistry was, without a doubt, the most unimaginable torture every single class. Harris was like the next coming of Satan, with a mean streak the size of Montana. The only good thing that Chem had going for it was the fact that Lydia was in the same class as him, and they were always lab partners. Lydia had long since gotten tired of pretending to be an idiot for boys and had given up the act. The whole school now knew exactly how intelligent she was, and she was never going to let them forget it.

They teamed up to punch through yet another lab, all while Harris came up with increasingly ridiculous reasons to yell at Stiles. He managed to get through class without accruing yet another detention, which he thinks is a feat in and of itself.

“Come over after school. We’ll do the report together,” Lydia says, packing her things neatly into her shoulder bag. All her folders are color coded and stacked alphabetically. Stiles are organized by however he shoves them into his backpack. It’s not very well-ordered — last week, he found a book report from freshman year at the bottom of his bag. Whatever. Not everyone can be Lydia.

“Uh…okay?” Stiles says, flinging his bag onto his shoulder and waiting for her to exit the room so he can follow like the lackey that he is. She flips her red curls over her shoulder and stomps out of the room like a queen. Stiles follows, only tripping over his feet once.

●●●

“He’s so…infuriating,” Stiles shouts, following Lydia up the stairs and into her bedroom. The rest of school had gone by without incident, but the conversation with Scott from lunch keeps flicking over his mind, which means that Derek, of all people,is on his mind. It bubbles up until he can do nothing other than complain about it…him, to someone. Lydia seems as good of a person as any.

The drive to Lydia’s from the school had taken all of seven minutes, and that was with the traffic after school let out. By the time he had pulled into Lydia’s driveway, she was waiting for him on the front step. 

They’ve come to an understanding on their relationship since last year’s emotional fiasco. Well….Lydia came to the understanding and notified Stiles exactly what she was going to allow when it came to the two of them. He agreed to it, mostly because a life without Lydia would be like a life without the sun, or something equally bright and important. 

Here’s the understanding as laid out by the one Lydia Martin: There is not and never will be anything romantic between them. Ever. Friendship is perfectly acceptable, and encouraged. 

So far the understanding has worked in his favor. Stiles gets to hang out with Lydia and bask in her presence as she flits around him like a hummingbird. Of course, the basking has calmed down somewhat as of late. He still likes her, and is maybe even still a little infatuated with her, but he’s not obsessed anymore. Not like he used to be. Tthe Lydia Martin he had fallen in love with didn’t exist — she never had. Over the course of many, _many_ years, Stiles had built her up to be the perfect woman, when in fact, the real Lydia Martin could be a judgmental bitch.

Not that that particular side of her made him like her any less. 

They get together now a few times a week to compare notes, study and do homework together. Stiles used to do homework strictly with Scott, but after last year with the whole werewolf thing and then the Allison thing, that had turned into a disaster zone of nuclear proportions. Lydia, however, had a no-nonsense policy when it came to homework. They got things done together. 

“Who’s infuriating, dear?” Lydia has thrown her bag on the floor, kicked her impossibly high heels off and flopped down into the bright red armchair in the corner. Stiles makes himself comfortable on customary spot on the floor, leaning against the end of her bed. 

Letting out a long sigh, Stiles starts up, “Derek Hale is infuriating!” He lets his head loll back against the bed, and shuts his eyes. “Scott got invited to their little werewolf training session by Derek’s stupid betas and then….” Stiles pauses for to breathe, having said all the before in one long breath, “when we do show up, he has the…the gall to ask why we’re even there!” He shakes himself, and rubs at his eyes with fists before looking back towards Lydia. She doesn’t look impressed, or even all that interested.

“Am I being unrealistic here? I mean, Scott’s a werewolf. He doesn’t know what he’s doing! Derek should offer to train him, right? It’s not like he’s not already doing the work, he’s got the three misfits…what’s one more?” 

Stiles lets out an anguished sigh, pushing at his eyes with the tips of his fingers. A headache is starting to burn there, right behind his sinuses, banging around inside his skull. When he opens his eyes, he sees stars, and then after a minute, sees Lydia reaching over the side of her chair. She picks up a thin piece of plastic that Stiles can’t identify right away and turns back to fix him with a look.

“Didn’t Derek offer to help him out last year?” She asks, looking like she already knows the answer. 

“Yes, but — “

She cuts him off. “If he already offered and Scott turned him down, why would he ask again?”

“I don’t know! But he should ha −- “

“Don’t be an idiot, Stiles, Derek asked, Scott said no. It was a perfectly acceptable response to you two showing up at his door uninvited.” She waves the plastic at him and then shifts in her chair. 

“Okay _fine_.” Stiles huffs, and lets his head thunk back against Lydia’s bed. “But he didn’t have to be so rude about it.”

There’s a lull in the conversation, then. The quiet seeps out between them, the only noise coming from Lydia’s chair as she moves around to get comfortable. Stiles thinks about grabbing his backpack and pulling out his chem homework, but ultimately doesn’t move. He fights with his headache instead, trying his best to will it away by sheer thought. It doesn’t work. 

“They say there’s a thin line between love and hate, you know,” Lydia murmurs about ten minutes later, from her spot in the arm chair. Her legs are hooked over one of the arms, neck flopped over the other, her red hair cascading down over the side hanging inches from the ground. She’s shaping her nails, slowing pulling the file back and forth over the fingers on her left hand. Every now and then she stops, pushes her hand out and checks her work. 

“What,” Stiles replies, mouth falling open slightly. His head is really starting to pound now. It takes a few seconds for her words to actually sink into his brain and come out with the actual meaning behind them. Once they do, Stiles narrows his eyes at her, and waits for her to lay out a map to where she’s going with this.

She stops her work and glances over at him, one perfectly manicured eyebrow raised. 

“You heard me.”

“Are you insinuating that Derek and I _love_ each other?” Stiles splutters, flailing his arms as he speaks. He narrowly misses the bed frame, just barely pulling his hand back towards himself in time. 

“I’m _insinuating_ that for two people who supposedly hate each other’s guts, you save each other kind of a lot,” Lydia isn’t even looking at him while she speaks — she’s gone back to filing her nails again. She scrapes the thin bit of plastic over her nail and then turns to point it at him. Stiles leans back involuntarily. “You were ready to cut his arm off. He saved you from Peter, he saved you from Isaac, and then you held him up in that pool for God knows how long….” She’s waving the nail file as she goes on until she stops and points it at him again, eyes narrowed. “You see what I’m getting at here?”

Stiles stares at her again, mouth still wide open, his eyes raising from the nail file back to her face. Scrunching his eyebrows together, he shakes his head.

“Noooo….?”

Sighing a rather put-upon sigh, Lydia rights herself in the chair and levels a stare at him. “Look,” She starts to point the file at him again before letting out another sigh and tossing it towards her purse. She doesn’t even watch to see if it lands anywhere near the bag; she’s too busy staring him down. “I think you two are so hung up on hating each other that you’re missing the obvious.” She stares at him again, brown eyes wide like she’s waiting for something to click in his head. When it becomes obvious that nothing is coming, she rolls her eyes and then continues, “If you two weren’t so intent on butting heads every time you were together, you’d see that you make a good team.” 

Derek treats him like the dirt beneath his boots most of the time, despite the fact that Stiles is the one to come up with most of the information his pack runs on. Stiles will get him whatever he needs to know, offer it up to him on a metaphorical golden platter and all Derek does is grunt, take the research and leap out his window. There’s never a ‘thank you.’ Ever. So why does Stiles keep looking shit up for him? 

Maybe it’s because when shit does hit the metaphorical fan? Stiles wants Derek on his side. The alpha werewolf has saved his ass so many times he’s actually lost count. Lydia mentioned a few of them, but he knows there’s been more situations than that. And she was right — he had done his fair share of saving Derek’s ass, too. But why did the older man continue to treat him like he was the most annoying person in all of creation?

Nothing adds up. Derek acts like he hates him. Acts like he can’t stand him, most of the time. But he keeps coming back. Why would he keep coming back to Stiles? What does he have that Derek couldn’t get anywhere else?

There’s no sudden revelation. No lightbulb clicking on or puzzle piece snapping into place. It feels like there should be, like this is the right moment in the movie of his life for a good old fashioned ah-ha moment, but nothing comes. He comes out of the fog not understanding anything any more than when he went in. 

Stiles looks back up at Lydia, eyebrows raised in confusion. She blinks at him, a slow grin pulling across her perfect pink lips. 

“Catching on, are we?”

“I don’t understand,” Stiles whines, pulling his hands through his hair, seizing the ends of it and tugging on them. He lets his arms flop out and swings them towards her. She shrugs a shoulder. He flinches backwards, flailing again, this time actually connecting with the bed frame. He pulls his hand back with a hiss. “But _why_?” 

“Because you do, Stiles,” Lydia answers, raising her eyes to his once more. She smiles sweetly and then adds, “But I still think he’s a dick.”

Stiles snorts, and then replies, “Yeah, well. That’s cause he is.”

She raises her eyebrows, and then shakes her head slowly, her perfect red curls swaying with the moment. “No, no. Thinking like that is what got you into this mess.” She points a perfectly shaped fingernail at him, still smiling like the Chesire cat. “Remember - love and hate, Stiles. Love and hate.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”


	6. Chapter 6

“Dude, why do you look so tired?” 

Stiles’ head is against his desk, face smashed against the fake wood top. He doesn’t move from his spot, just raises his eyebrows at his best friend in answer. Scott’s face is pulled into something resembling amusement, which makes Stiles want to reach across the aisle and punch him in the arm. He doesn’t though, mostly because it would involve moving and he’s too goddamned tired to do anything that involves movement. 

“I didn’t sleep last night. Well, I did, but not as much as I usually do,” Stiles says, keeping his face against the desk. He closes his eyes for a moment, feeling the pull to just fall asleep, but he doesn’t follow it. He can’t. He’s actually got to pay attention in this class — English has never been his favorite subject. He opens his eyes again and stares across at Scott. 

Everything rushes back at him, like a flash flood drowning his brain. 

There was a little girl missing, and his father, the sheriff, didn’t know where she was, or how to find her. There weren’t any clues, nothing to help police find her, nothing at all. Stiles sat up suddenly, eyes wide open. Scott stared at him, searching his face for something. Stiles blinked, and then turned completely in his chair to face his friend. 

“Dad’s got a new case,” Stiles whispers, leaning towards Scott even though he doesn’t have to. He could whisper from across the room and his werewolf best friend would be able to hear him. It’s just a habit, one that he hasn’t kicked from before Scott had been bitten. 

Scott doesn’t say anything, just raises his eyebrows, waiting for him to continue with something a little more substantial. 

“There’s a girl missing,” Stiles adds. “She’s six.”

Scott’s face falls, then twists into disgust. “Who would take a six year old girl?”

Stiles flicks his hands out, nodding. Scooting to the edge of his seat, he leans closer to his friend. “Exactly! What kind of twisted monster would —“ He cuts himself off and shakes his head like he’s trying to dislodge that line of thought from his mind. This wasn’t what he wanted to talk about….he wanted to talk about the case itself. He starts up again, “The thing is, there aren’t any clues. There’s nothing.”

“What?” Scott’s confused, eyebrows scrunching together and mouth falling open. 

“The little girl, she was playing by the pond in the park and she —“

The teacher walks in, then, and a second later, the bell to start class clangs through the room. Stiles waves at Scott, mouthing that he’ll tell him more later, after class is over. 

While the teacher drones on about Watership Down, Stiles thinks about the missing girl. He scrapes his pen against his notebook, doodling random things in the margins. So far he’s written down the title of the book, and the names of the main characters, but his ADHD gets the better of him after that. He’s too distracted to care about personified rabbits. 

It baffled him, that there was no evidence of where she had gone or who had taken her. Could her mom have done something to her? Killed her and hid her away? It hurt his gut to think about it — what parent could do something like that to their child? It didn’t feel like the right answer, either, which made things even stranger. People couldn’t just disappear, which meant that Chelsea was somewhere. Possibly somewhere in Beacon Hills, with someone that she probably didn’t know, terrified.

Poor kid.

The need to find her surges through him, electrifying his body. He could do it, something deep inside him tells him that he could, that he’ll be the one to bring back little Chelsea. He just needs something to go off of. No one’s going to be able to find her without something pointing which way to go. 

Stiles scribbles against the paper in front of him again, pressing the pen nib harder and harder until the paper rips. Scott looks over, concern for him etched into his features. Even Isaac’s head whips around from two rows to the right to stare at him from over his shoulder. Stiles waves them away, he’s fine, he doesn’t need anyone’s concern. What he does need is a way to find this little girl — they’re running out of reasonable time to find her alive. Every minute is a minute less of this little girl’s life, and Stiles has made a promise to himself that they’re going to find her alive, whatever it takes. It might be a stupid thing, to make this promise to himself, but he has to find her. It’s rooted deeply in him now, and nothing is going to make him turn away from this.

The bell shrieks through the room, startling everyone, even the teacher. The room rumbles to life, everyone shoving things back in their bags and pushing their chairs in as they leave. Stiles hangs back, waiting for Scott to get his things together. The other boy takes forever, stacking everything carefully before letting them all fall into his bag where they bounce against the bottom. Scott flings the bag around his shoulders and finally, _finally_ , they are able to leave. 

They’re about halfway down the hallway before Scott punches him on the arm and says, “So? The little girl?”

Stiles heaves out a sigh and then bobs his head, “Okay, so she went missing in the park, out by the pond, right? And her mom says that she just looked down for a second, and then when she looked up again, Chelsea was gone. She didn’t look away long enough for anyone to grab her, or for her to go wandering off. There’s just…nothing. It’s like she just vanished or something.” 

Scott stares at him, defaulting once gain to the familiar confused face. Maybe it’s not confusion, maybe that’s just the face Scott makes when he’s thinking.

“But that’s…impossible, right? I mean, she has to be somewhere?”

Stiles shrugs. He doesn’t say anything about so-called impossibility. Werewolves were supposed to be impossible. Kanimas, magic, the walking dead, that was all supposed to be impossible, but he knew them all to be very, terrifingly real. “Dad put out a search party last night, with the dogs. They had to call it off ‘cause of the rain.”

Scott’s face crumples. “They didn’t find anything?”

“No, man, Dad would have told me if they did,” Stiles answers, turning the corner towards their next class. Scott toddles behind him, rushing slightly to catch up with Stiles’ slightly longer legs. 

“Are they gonna do another one or something?” Scott asks, taking another huge step to come up beside Stiles. 

“Later tonight, I think.”

“I wanna help.”

Stiles nods once, and grins at his best friend. Of course, Scott would want to help, what with that heart of gold of his and his need to help anyone he comes across. But hey, with his special werewolf powers he might be able to — An idea is forming, blossoming into something more solid, and once it finally clicks, he twists suddenly and snaps out a punch against Scott’s shoulder. It connects right against the hard bone in his shoulder, and pain rattles right up Stiles’ arm and settles in his arm socket. He shakes his arm out while shouting, “SCOTT, YOU’RE AMAZING!”

Scott flinches from the sudden noise, but placates Stiles with a small smile.

●●●

It’s hours before he can do anything about his idea, but the second school ends, Stiles sends exactly one text message, and hopes for the best.

TO DEREK  
I need a favor.

It takes about three seconds for his phone to vibrate in his hand. The screen lights up when he pokes at it, and the message pops up.

1 new message  
FROM DEREK  
what

Stiles snorts and then thumbs in a reply.

TO DEREK  
There’s a missing girl and there’s a search party for her tonight. Will you help? 

Stiles waits for a minute or two for a reply, but when none comes, he decides to make his way to the parking lot. He’s pushing his key into the lock when his pocket vibrates. He shoves the key to the left, yanks the door open and hops up into the seat before excavating his phone from his pocket. When he pulls it out, the screen reads:

1 new message  
FROM DEREK  
where’s the party meeting?

A whoosh of breath he didn’t know he was holding escapes, fogging up the screen on his phone. Stiles wipes it away with his thumb and rereads the message, just to be sure. He was half-expecting a no, to be honest. Sure, Derek hadn’t said that he’d definitely be there, but he did ask where the search party was meeting, so that was practically a yes. Stiles types another reply:

TO DEREK   
5 o’clock at the playground in the park. She went missing right behind it.

1 new message  
FROM DEREK  
okay

Stiles leaves it at that, and assumes that Derek will show up. If he doesn’t, well, Scott will be there and Derek will still be a dick, no matter what Lydia says about “love.” One werewolf should be enough, right? Even if said werewolf doesn’t have any real grasp on his abilities yet, Scott’s nose is better than no nose. 

He throws his phone at the passenger seat, turns the key in the ignition and throws the jeep in reverse. The drive home is short and quiet, which means Stiles has time to think about Chelsea and the search party. 

They needed to find something tonight. Anything, really, anything that pointed to a direction in which she had gone or where she had been taken. Tonight was it. They had to find something or things were only going to go down hill. Hopefully, between Scott and Derek, they’d be able to give the police department that nudge forward that they needed.

●●●

By the time 5 o’clock rolls around, Stiles has done a thorough cleaning of the kitchen, just to have something to do with his hands. All the dishes have been washed, floor swept and then run over with that little Swiffer-mop thing. The fridge has been emptied of questionably old leftovers, trash emptied, and taken to the curb. Once the clock on the oven finally ticks 5:00, there is nothing left for him to do. 

Scott’s meeting him at the park, and Derek has his own transportation, so Stiles just gets in the Jeep and goes. 

When he finally does get to the playground, a hundred or so people are milling about, waiting for someone to gather them all together. Stiles recognizes some of the faces as he passes through the crowd - that’s Mr. McNulty from across the street, and Trisha, who lives behind them both chatting animatedly about something he can’t quite hear. He passes them, walks through the thickest part of the horde and stumbles into a good chunk of the lacrosse team. Jackson isn’t there, which isn’t a surprise. Danny, however, smiles and waves at him, and Stiles returns both before moving on. 

He goes to step around someone and then backtracks as he recognizes the leather jacket.

“You came,” Stiles says, failing to look unsurprised. Derek just _barely_ rolls his eyes, like he’s tired of being treated like a flake. His face shifts into unimpressed and then he says:

“Did you think I wouldn’t?”

Stiles ignores him and looks past Derek’s shoulder, taking in blonde hair, someone freakishly tall, and someone built like a linebacker. Erica, Isaac and Boyd all wave. Well, Erica and Isaac do, Boyd just nods. 

“You brought your pack?” Stiles looks back at Derek, mouth falling open. 

“The more noses the better, right?” Derek offers, raising his eyebrows, his grin looking a little smug. Stiles isn’t sure why — maybe it’s a werewolf thing, being smug about your sense of smell, but whatever. He’ll take all the werewolves he can get if it means finding this little girl sooner. 

Scott slides into view, literally sliding on the bottoms of his sneakers until he bumps right until Stiles’ side. Stiles stumbles a little with impact, leaning to the left until Scott yanks him back onto both feet. 

“I brought my werewolf, too,” Stiles says, poking at Scott’s shoulder. He glances back to see something flash in Derek’s eyes, a tiny flicker of something change in his expression. Stiles…does not know what to do with that, so he waves everyone into a huddle of sorts and explains what’s going on.

“They’re going to have everyone fan out from the playground and walk in particular grid areas. They’ve already done most of this with the dogs, but who the hell knows what they might have missed. They brought some of the dogs again tonight, so they’ll have the evidence they took from Chelsea’s mom. Which means,” Stiles pauses, for breath and for emphasis, “That you guys will be able to get a whiff of the little girl. Maybe you’ll be able to tell us what nothing else can.” He stops, looks at the werewolves all around him, who look hopeful and sad at the same time. Derek’s going for stoic, but he must feel _something_ or why would he offer to help? Why would he bring the whole pack?

“They’re gonna split people into pairs, I think. That’s what they did last time they had a volunteer search party,” Stiles adds, shrugging. He’s been talking like he’s a member of the police force, but all the information he knows about the case he’s gotten from his father and the folder he brought home. Who knows what sized gaps there are in his knowledge — the police had all day while he was at school. Maybe they found something.

Derek splits his pack up into pairs, taking Isaac as his partner, leaving Boyd and Erica together. Scott and Stiles are a no-brainer. 

A police woman shouts over a megaphone for everyone to gather together towards the front, so she can explain what’s going on. She goes through what they’re looking for, how to search, when to call Chelsea’s name, the whole shebang. Most of it is stuff Stiles went over with the wolves, but there are a few things even he didn’t know about. While she’s talking about the familiar things, Stiles’ eyes drift away and down, to look through the line of law enforcement officials. His dad is towards the end to the right, talking with a deputy over a clipboard. The sheriff looks up, glances over the crowd and after a second or two, locks eyes with him. Stiles smiles and waves. The sheriff just nods.

“We’re handing out clipboards — make sure your name is on at least one of them,” shouts a deputy as she moves through the crowd. The police circle everyone, careful eyes watching to make sure all names are added to the list. Stiles scribbles his name quickly once a clipboard makes it to him, and once he’s done, he shoves it at Scott. All the pack’s names get added to the same board, Derek only looking up to give Stiles a ‘Is this going to come back and bite me on the ass?’ look, communicated strictly through his eyebrows. Stiles shrugs, unsure of how it would, but Derek writes his name down anyway. 

The crowd starts to thin out after that, people pairing up and walking away from the playground. The pack hangs back, waiting for almost everyone to go, before Stiles approaches one of the dog handlers. 

“Um…hey, Deputy Hill,” Stiles starts, putting his best charming smile on. She looks unimpressed, tugging slightly on the dog’s leash. 

“What do you want, Stiles?” 

“Do you have the…stuff they took from Chelsea’s mom for the dogs to smell?”

She raises her eyebrows, and nods slowly, like she’s not sure she should be telling him this. “Yes, why?” Stiles scoots closer, and thumbs over his shoulder at the ragtag group behind him. They’re all watching, while simultaneously trying to look like they’re not watching.

“My friend here thinks he might know the girl, but isn’t sure. Um could he maybe…see what you have? Maybe he’ll recognize it or something,” Stiles says, motioning towards Boyd and grinning like this wasn’t his play the entire time. Scott was too obvious a choice; everyone in the station knows Scott. Isaac was under investigation last year, and hell, Derek was arrested. Boyd was safe.

Deputy Hill lowers her eyebrows, and crosses her arms over her chest, never letting go of the leash. “How would he know the little girl, exactly?”

“Babysitting!” Stiles answers, with much more enthusiasm than necessary. “Used to babysit her. Maybe. If it’s the same girl.”

The deputy sighs, and gives him this _look_ , like she maybe knows he’s lying out of his ass, but is inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. Stiles just keeps smiling, and then for good measure, clasps his hands out in front and makes quiet pleading noises. Hill points at him with two fingers together. 

“You better not be pulling this crap outta nowhere, Stilinski, or so help me, I will _tell your father,_ ” She turns on her heel then and walks towards one of the police vans. Stiles whips around and beckons for the pack to follow. They traipse behind the deputy like a small herd of ducklings until they reach the van, where they fan out into a half circle around the trunk. 

Deputy Hill hands the leash to another officer, opens the back of the van and climbs right inside. She emerges a few seconds later, plastic gloves on, holding a bag with a teddy bear in it, and another with a hairbrush inside. She opens the one with the bear and holds it towards them, by an arm. The entire pack leans closer, noses working. 

“Recognize this?” 

It’s a pretty plain bear, actually. Brown fur, worn in all the usual places with one of its eyes missing. There’s not much to recognize, but Boyd, in all his dutiful glory, nods and lets his face fall into an appropriate approximation of sadness. 

“Yeah, I do.”

The deputy looks sorrowful at that, face crestfallen. She puts the bear back into the bag and then reaches out to clap a hand on Boyd’s shoulder. Boyd attempts to look comforted and takes a step back to stand next to Erica, who does her part by leaning on him, whispering what must supposed to be sympathetic words. 

“We’ll find her. Now go help, okay?” Deputy Hill gives them a smile, and shoos them away. 

Once they’re out of earshot, they burst into laughter. (Derek doesn’t. He settles for looking faintly amused.) Stiles lets the laughter rattle through him until it peters out into nothing, and then he waves the pack together again. 

“Okay, okay, so you got it, right?”

They all nod like bobble heads on a dashboard. 

“Well…let’s go find her, then,” Stiles says, trying his best to sound triumphant. It must sort of work, because the pack grins at him and walk off in pairs, noses in the air. Scott tugs on his arm, and motions towards the playground.

“What is it, Lassie?” That gets him a punch on the arm. 

“The smell…it’s faint over there. All mixed up with a bunch of others though, so it’s probably nothing.” 

Probably true, but they check it out anyway. They circle around the whole play structure for about half an hour, walking up and down, through the swings, even going down the slide once or twice. The trail must be everywhere Chelsea played that day, because just as Scott skids down the slide once more, he follows the trail off the gravel and onto the grass. 

Stiles just walks behind him like one of the dog handlers, letting Scott and his nose lead the way. 

They end up by the pond, right at the edge. Scott stares at the water, like it’s personally offended him, and then he walks a few feet in either direction a few times, always coming back to the same spot. Stiles scrunches his face together, and then after the third time of Scott making the circuit, asks, “What?”

“There’s no more,” Scott says, waving at the ground. “There’s nothing else after here.”

“What d’you mean?” 

Scott stomps a foot against the ground, like Stiles is being purposely obtuse. 

“I mean, there’s no more trail. It ends here.”

Stiles lets his mouth fall open. That can’t be right. 

“There’s nothing. No faint traces. Maybe I just can’t smell it or something. Maybe you should call Derek,” Scott offers, kicking at the ground with the toe of his shoe. 

“Can’t you just howl or something?” Stiles says, half-way joking.

“Not if you don’t want _everyone_ to hear, idiot.” Scott pulls a face at him, and turns back to the water. Stiles makes a face in return, sticking his tongue out to Scott’s back, before pulling his phone out.

“Fiiiiine,” He says, mostly to himself at this point. He types out the message. 

TO DEREK  
Can you come back to the pond? Scott found something.

Stiles hits send and then goes to stand next to Scott at the water. He’s still staring at it, like he’s never seen a pond before. Stiles pokes at him, one long finger into Scott’s side. 

“What, dude, why are you looking at it that way?”

Scott tilts his head slightly, squints at the surface like he’s figuring something out, but doesn’t turn to Stiles. He just says, “The water is weird.”

“ _What_? Dude, it’s just water. This is all manmade so it’s probably piped in from somewhere…”

Scott shakes his head, like that’s not what he meant. But before Stiles can bother him about it any further, Derek shows up, with Isaac in tow. They both look a little too hopeful, which makes his stomach turn over. They _do_ care.

“What is it?” Derek asks, glancing at Stiles before addressing Scott. Scott goes through it all again, telling the alpha werewolf about the playground, and about the trail that led them to the pond. Derek nods through it, until Scott gets to how the trail ends with absolutely nothing. He scowls and then walks the path Scott indicated, like he doesn’t believe what Scott’s telling him. 

A minute or two passes while Derek moves around the pond. He goes all the way around it, looking more and more uneasy as he comes back around the bend, fists clenched by his sides. 

“This isn’t good,” Derek says, like they all haven’t already come to that conclusion. Stiles motions for more. C’mon, some explanation would be nice here. They already know the situation sucks, they don’t need any more reminders of that. 

Derek fixes him with a flat look, before continuing, “Scott’s right. There’s no more trail. Not even a hint of one.” Stiles huffs out a breath. He’d never thought he’d think it, but Derek’s right — this isn’t good. 

“But…” Derek starts, and turns towards the water, where Scott had been standing. He stares at it, just like Scott had, tilting his head and moving back and forth, like he’s testing something. Stiles watches, unsure of what he’s seeing. Has he missed something? It’s just water, isn’t it? The pond has been there for as long as he can remember — he used to throw shit in it when he was younger just to watch the water dance. 

Derek squats by the edge of the pond, groping around for something on the ground. Grabbing a stone, Derek stands again and tosses it towards the water. Ripples circle out immediately, flattening out after a minute or so. Derek watches until the water is still, when he turns towards them like he’s proven something.

“The water isn’t right,” He says, and a second after, Scott shouts, ”That’s what I said!”

Derek nods, looking vaguely proud of Scott. Isaac steps closer, and looks out towards the pond. The toes of his sneakers almost brush the water, and Derek jerks him back by the arm, looking horrified. It’s the most expression Stiles has seen on his face today. 

“Don’t touch it,” Derek whispers, voice deadly serious. Isaac jumps away from the edge of the water, moving to stand behind Scott, who whisper-asks him if he can see what they’re talking about. Isaac nods. 

“What….is it?” Stiles asks, taking a huge step away from the pond. If Derek was afraid of it, he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to know what it was, but it was probably for the best that he know exactly what they were dealing with. He would probably end up being the one doing all the research again, anyway.

Derek glances at the pond water, and then flicks his eyes towards Stiles. 

“The reflection isn’t right,” Derek answers, pointing towards the mirrored image of himself in the surface of the water. It looks right to Stiles, but maybe his lowly human eyes can’t see the difference. “It’s minute, but it’s there.” 

He still doesn’t see it, and says so. Derek heaves a sigh and then explains more fully, “It’s…just a fraction of a second behind when you move. Like it’s something watching you and repeating what you do. And the ripples were off, like something was pulling on the water.”

Stiles blinks at him. 

“There’s something in the water?” Stiles asks, eyes wide. Derek nods.

“I don’t know what. I can’t smell it. But _don’t touch the water_.” 

Stiles takes another gigantic step away. He’s not taking any risks here. They’re already missing a little girl; they don’t need to be missing a Stiles, too.

“I’m going home. We won’t find Chelsea tonight,” Derek announces, walking towards the parking lot where the Camaro sits. “If whatever is in the water took her, we won’t find her. Not until we know more.” He stops and turns back to face them all before locking eyes with Stiles. “I’ll let you know if I figure out what it is.”

Stiles bobs his head, and watches as Derek turns, and then closes the distance between him and the parking lot, and then drives away. 

They get Erica and Boyd back to the park soon after that, and Stiles tells them what they missed. They too can see the “wrongness” of the water, as Scott called it, which furthers Stiles suspicions about his weak human eyes. 

He ends up having to take Isaac back to Derek’s loft. It’s not a big deal or anything, but Derek _was_ there. He could have taken Isaac back with him. Maybe he wanted to make a dramatic exit…which if that was the case, that was just _rude._ Or maybe (and much more likely) the older man was just not used to having the other werewolf living with him yet. 

It takes a second for it to sink in, but when it does, Stiles all but slams his forehead into his steering wheel — when did he get in the habit of defending Derek Hale?


	7. Chapter 7

Lily and Rose are ten and they hate the park. They hate the park and they hate the swings and the slide and they hate their mother. Their mother is the reason their father left. Their parents shouted and screamed at each other for months and months and then Daddy packed a suitcase and left. It’s been almost a year since they’ve seen him, which hurts every time they think about it. He didn’t even come to their last birthday.

Mommy already has a new boyfriend and a new baby. Lily and Rose don’t want a baby brother, but they have one. 

Matthew is in his baby carrier by the bench their mother sits on. His little face is red with rage as he screams, little fists bashing against the plastic of the car seat sending hallow little _thunks_ into the air. Mommy tries to calm him down, offering him bottle and pacifier and toys — he wants none of it. He just screams and screams and screams while Lily and Rose are supposed to be playing.

“Wanna go on the swings?” Rose asks her twin, prodding her on the shoulder. She nods towards the swing set, her red pony tail flicking with the movement. The swings are empty, which means they could have their pick of whatever swing they wanted. 

“No. I wanna go _home,_ ” Lily answers, whining and crossing her arms over her chest. She glares daggers at their mom. How could she do this to their family? To Daddy? 

“Mommy said we have to play for an hour before we can go home,” Rose says, reminding her sister of the agreement that they had come to with their mother. They hadn’t wanted to come to the park at all, but their mom had said they needed fresh air and that it would be good for their brother. Lily and Rose don’t care about Matthew and they certainly don’t need to go to the park to get fresh air. They have a backyard.

They’re both sitting in the sandbox, sandaled feet digging into the warm sand beneath them. Lily sticks her hands into it, playing around with how it feels against her fingers. It’s then that Matthew lets out a particularly head-splitting screech. They both wince and clap their hands over their ears, trying to drown out the noise. A parent of another kid at the park shoots a scowl towards their mother, and Lily fights down a surge of embarrassment. They shouldn’t be here. They should be at home where Matthew’s crying will only bother them, not anyone else. 

An idea occurs to her, and because of it, she starts to smile. 

“I know how we can go home.” 

Rose looks up from the sand and waits to hear what her sister’s come up with. Lily leans over and whispers it into her ear, not waiting for her reaction before she stands up and stomps off. Rose follows, throwing a glance towards their mother as she moves after her twin.

They end up at the park’s little pond, just behind the bench their mom is sitting on, still trying to get Matthew to stop wailing like he’s in pain. Lily ignores the two of them, while Rose keeps turning around to look, like they’re going to get caught doing something they shouldn’t be doing. Their mother hasn’t looked up for them once, which cements the feeling in her gut, the feeling that says they aren’t important to her anymore. She’s too busy with Matthew to care what her daughters are up to. 

Kicking at the edge of the pond, Rose’s toes breach the water and send ripples circling out away from her. Lily plops down on the grass and lets her feet brush against the pond. 

“Wanna do it together?” Lily asks, slapping the bottoms of her shoes against the water carefully. 

“Yeah, I guess,” Rose answers, holding a hand out towards Lily, who takes it and yanks herself to her feet. 

They stand together at the edge of the water, watching as the ripples start to calm into stillness, leaving the pond like glass. Something shimmers under the surface, a few feet from shore. Rose gasps, and points towards it. 

“Look!”

It takes a second, but then Lily is gasping, too. Whatever it is, it’s large, gold and shiny. It might be something expensive, or old. Something they could maybe use to get their father back. Maybe he left because there wasn’t enough money. Maybe it would help.

“Let’s go! We can get it when we’re in there!” Rose exclaims, grabbing her sister’s hand once more. 

Lily grins at her, and then nods, “We’ll do 1, 2, 3, _jump_ , okay?”

Rose nods back, and waits for her sister to start the countdown. Once this is all over, they’ll have something to get Daddy back, and they would be going home. Their mother wasn’t about to make them play when they were all wet. She’d make them pile into the car and then she’d drive them home, where she’d make them shower and maybe make them stay in their room the rest of the day. Just what they wanted.

“One,” Lily starts, swinging their arms between them. Rose muffles a giggle against with her free hand. “Two,” Lily continues, her grin getting wider and wider. This was going to work perfectly. “Three!” She shrieked with laughter, as they swung their arms once more and took a leap straight into the pond. 

The water was a lot deeper than they had originally thought, and neither one of them were good swimmers. Their mother had signed them up for lessons, but nothing had really sunk in. They thrashed about the water, trying to find purchase against the bottom of the pond, or against each other. 

They relaxed after a moment, remembering what their swimming teacher had taught them — don’t panic. Panicking never helped anyone in the water, she had said when they had flipped out about jumping into the deep end of the pool. 

They calmed down, kicking with their feet to keep afloat while they clung to each other. 

Breathing heavily, Lily stretched her toes downward, trying to feel for whatever they had seen in the water earlier. “Where’d it go?” She panted, circling her arms around her sister’s neck to get a better grip. She couldn’t feel anything underneath them, but it seemed like they should be right on top of it. 

“What?” Rose asked, grabbing at the water to pull them back to shore. They were moving closer, their toes starting to brush the bottom. It would have been easier, though, with the two of them working together. Lily wasn’t paying attention to what was going on around her — she was too worried about the thing they had seen earlier. 

“The shiny thing we saw!” 

“I don’t know. I wanna get out,” Rose shook her head, still pulling at the water to get them closer to the edge, so they could climb out and show themselves to their mother. She’d get mad at them, but ultimately, they’d get to go home. 

Lily keeps looking at the water, trying to see through the ripples to the pond floor. She twists in her sister’s grip, looking another direction. Maybe they had gotten turned around when they were splashing about. 

Rose tugs them again and that’s when Lily sees it. It’s a big gold bar, like they see in cartoons all the time, glowing like someone’s pointing a light at it. 

“There! There, it’s right there!” She exclaims, yanking with all her might to turn her sister towards it, pointing. Rose gasps. They stare at it for a while, unsure how they’re going to get it without having to go under the water. It seems impossible.

Rose opens her mouth to say something, but something grabs at her foot, long fingers wrapping around her ankle and pulling. She turns her word into a scream, but by the time it escapes her mouth, she’s underwater. Lily watches, horrified, eyes wide. She screams once, a loud, long screech that echoes through the park, but the fingers slip around her calf and soon she follows her sister under the water. 

By the time their mother looks around, the water is still.

**Author's Note:**

> this whole fic is basically taken right off of season 2 and diverts from season 3, simply because we don't really know where s3 is going yet. yes, i know what happened to erica in s3. i don't care. this is AU for a reason. i've taken bits and pieces of canon and tweaked them for my own purpose. if you have any questions, just ask.
> 
> i'm on [tumblr.](http://funvee.tumblr.com/)


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